This article highlights the lessons learned from recent research into the use made of an online learning environment by workplace-based students. The findings show a lot of interesting things, such as the tendency to study the materials linearly although there are a lot of hypertext available, for instance. A lot of useful recommendations have been extracted from the students’ opinions and attitudes to ameliorate future online courses.

The CBLPET project (Computer-Based Learning in Petroleum Engineering) aimed to design an online learning environment to enable students to study towards a masters degree in Petroleum Engineering in a flexible manner, at home or in their places of work. The students undertaking the course are generally self-motivated, mature learners, undertaking the course to improve their professional standing and career prospects, who be studying from locations across the globe and may have to travel frequently.

The learning environment was based upon an existing constructivist framework designed for the teaching of processes in the workplace (McKinnon et al., 1998), which was modified based on the results of a requirements analysis. This analysis aimed to identify key features that would benefit workplace learners and could reasonably be implemented in the learning environment within the timescale of the project. The evaluation examined the students’ use and effectiveness of these features (Beasley, et al., In Press; Beasley & Smyth, 2004) and the results are summarised below.

How Online Materials were Used

Students were provided with a complete set of materials in online format, so that the whole course could be studied online from any computer, at work or at home. However, all of the students requested printed versions of the materials in addition. The evaluation showed that they liked the flexibility of the printed materials, which enabled them to study anywhere, and the ability to annotate the printed materials. Students found it difficult to study during working hours because of noise and interruptions, and tended to study after hours online or at home with the paper version.

As a constructivist learning environment, the online materials contained many hyperlinks, which it is claimed have the educational advantage of allowing students greater control over the order in and depth to which they explore a topic, allowing for more reflection and active gaining of knowledge (Jonasson, 1992). However, in this environment, students tended to study the materials linearly, making little use of the hypertext available, except in the case of the online glossary. This may be linked with the tendency to use the book and online materials together, as the book is necessarily linear.

Activity focus: first the contents, then the activities

A number of components were highlighted during the requirements analysis that are common to constructivist learning environments, such as the use of learning activities set within an authentic context and the provision of information resources (Grabinger & Dunlap, 1995; Jonassen & Murphy, 1999) and the design of the environment was such that learning activities were provided throughout the course study materials.

This combination of learning materials and activities could be accessed in one of two ways: either material could be read first and the activities used for testing or consolidating knowledge; or the students could start with the activities and use them in a more problem-based manner, accessing material when required to complete an activity. The evaluation showed that the students found the activities extremely valuable for learning and, despite being aware of the activities view, universally chose to use the activities after studying the content.

This could have been caused by a lack of explicit instructions in how to study in an activity-focussed, problem-based manner and a lack of experience of online learning and reliance on traditional, tried-and-tested ways of learning. Studying in a linear manner also meant that students could be sure that they had covered all the necessary material for the course.

Online support: little use of discussion boards

In the requirements analysis, students expressed a strong desire for online communication mechanisms, to interact both with their tutor and their peers. This was seen as important because many of the students are geographically remote and felt a strong need for support and a learning community. However, the discussion boards provided were little used by any of the students.

On reflection, this is not totally surprising as no learning tasks were specifically associated with the online discussion and they were merely provided as a mechanism for students to contact the tutor and other students with questions as and when they occurred. It is generally accepted that without a reason to participate in online discussion, few students will (Tolmie & Boyle 2000; Salmon 2002).

A reason given by the students for non-use was that they felt no need to do so because most of the support they required was motivational rather than academic and this could be provided better face-to-face by colleagues in their organisations than by a distant tutor they had never met.

Interactivity and multimedia

Students expressed a desire for interactive course content, such as simulations and interactive multimedia, during the requirements analysis, however it was not possible to implement much in the learning environment owing to the time constraints of the project. However, high-quality colour images were provided and much appreciated by the students who said that this was one of the key reasons that they would go online, which had additional value above that of the black and white paper version.

In the evaluation, students were asked to consider what types of interactivity would add greatest value to the course and the feedback was very clear that for interactivity to be worthwhile it would have to be non-trivial and have a specific purpose related to the content that could not be equally well achieved with text and pictures. For this student group, interactivity for its own sake was clearly not a motivator. A number of potential interactivities were suggested: glossary word-matching quick quizzes to test knowledge of complex terminology; animated graphics of geological and time-dependent processes; the ability to isolate separate data segments on complex graphs to simplify the data representation; and the provision of hints, such as bringing up a solution to a problem a line at a time so that learners can pick up a solution from where they understand it.

Lessons learned

The students, being workplace-based, often found that they had distinct blocks of free time to spend studying and said that if the materials were structured into timed units, more effective workplace study could be facilitated. Although the idea of tightly timed units is counter to the idea of self-paced, needs-based learning, on a practical level it may be beneficial to students trying to fit study into their working days.

Although the students appreciated the activities provided, they stated that they would have preferred more of them, and more interactivity within them. The evaluation indicated that if more use were made of visual, interactive elements, which would not be possible in the printed version, students would be more likely to use the web for other parts of the course as well, making more use of hyperlinks and the non-linear structure.

A more explicit integration of activities and content would ensure that students studying using the activities view felt reassured that they were covering all the desired content. It is also key to provide students with explicit instructions on how to study effectively using the online learning environment and the activities within it.

The non-use of the discussion facilities is an issue that the needs further consideration. Although the students did not feel disadvantaged by not using the discussion boards, it could be argued that the opportunities that online communication offers for interaction and community building could have enriched the learning experience and that there was missed potential here. The course could be improved by developing specific learning activities based around the discussion forum, and by providing instructions and descriptions of their purpose for the students.